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Web Content Accordion Best Practices

As you probably know, VitalSite has a great feature called accordions. Accordions allow you to take a long run-on page and condense the content into collapsed accordions so you can add even more content and accordions to your page, right?! Well… not exactly. That’s not the intent, anyway. But we see it used for exactly that purpose all too often.

Perhaps you are caught in the “how many accordions are too many?” conundrum. Many healthcare marketers are. There are some general guidelines you can use so let’s dive right in.

Generally, 5-6 accordions is the maximum you should place on one page. If you add any more you can safely say that you are trying to place too much content on one page. So you might think a solution to this is to make your accordion headers “broader” so each accordion can encompass more content. Not so much; which leads us to the next guideline.

Content within each accordion should be relatively short. Keep the consumer in mind. You don’t want them to do an unreasonable amount of scrolling (especially if they are on a mobile device) because they will stop reading. We often hear, “I just can’t condense my content down that much.” That’s okay – it means you probably need more than one page for all of the content.

Too much accordion content:

A good amount of accordion content:

Keep in mind not everyone is going to open and read the content in every accordion. Don’t put important information such as major calls-to-action in accordions.

Using only one accordion on a page is a no-no. If you only need one accordion, the content should be a paragraph on the page. If you find yourself in this situation, change the trigger into a heading and add the content directly onto the page.

Incorrect:

Correct:

Why does it matter if there are a ton of accordions and/or a ton of content within my accordions?

You hurt your SEO when you have too many accordions and/or accordion content on your page. The search engines don’t know what’s important so your content will be ranked poorly. Nobody wants that.

Ditto for your consumers – too many accordions and/or accordion content and they lose the importance of the content or what you want them to focus on. Which leads to the next point.

You will wear your audience out. They will stop reading. Since you put so much time and effort into your content you want people to actually read it!

Are you still struggling with accordions or your content in general? Let Geonetric help! Talk to your client advisor about ways we can help you clean up your page content. It’s just one of the many ways Geonetric can help you optimize your page content and utilize the great functionality VitalSite provides your healthcare organization.

About Rachel Montis

The traits of an amazing project manager? Personable. Smart. Multi-tasker extraordinaire. Check, check and check. Rachel is one of the most cheerful people you’ll ever meet and approaches every project with a can-do attitude. That’s what makes her an exceptional project manager at Geonetric, always providing superior support to Geonetric’s clients and project management team with a contagious smile. With five years of experience in office administration and project management, Rachel is a perfectionist and understands the value of being highly-organized and accountable. Rachel holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Mt. Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, IA. This long-time bookkeeper for the Geonetric intermural softball team recently got her own glove and loves playing catch with her husband. Put her in coach, she’s ready to play!